Court reserves ruling on whether to accept MEC’s late submission of Malawi electoral audit report
The Constitutional Court has now received an application by Malawi Electoral Commission (MEC) to submit to the court a report by external auditors it has hired to validate the results of the elections.
This was disclosed by , Justice Healey Potani on behalf of the panel of five judges hearing the on going election case,
Potani said the court has reserved its ruling, for a later date, on whether to accept the report.
MEC was on July 25 found in breach of court order after it failed to submit the audit to court as requested by first petitioner UTM party leader Saulos Chilima and second petitioner Malawi Congress Party (MCP) president Lazarus Chakwera’s lawyers.
Later, the commission told the media that the failure to submit the report was because the commission was still waiting for the auditing firm, BDO Jordan, a firm commissioned by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), to respond to some questions the commission had on the contents of the report.
The auditor’s report on the processing and transmission of results for the May 21 2019 polls shows that the electoral body had more results-related challenges than they admitted, which needed to be addressed before announcing winners.
For example, the report says there were 273 forms affected by the controversial correction material, Tippex, 65 forms were manually amended, 45 had missing signatures, while 66 forms did not have political parties’ signatures.
According to the report, some Form 66 sheets were unclear; other forms used were not original and even more were excessively Tippexed by presiding officers (POs).
There was suspected manipulation of results forms, and the MEC information, communication and technology (ICT) people, in some instances, scanned the wrong copies of Form 66 and captured wrong data, according to the report.
After meeting for 11 days, the court has now gone on recess and will resume sitting on September 3.
Chilima and his key witness are the only individuals who have testified in a case this far.
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Con court should get it and make judgement from it rather than entertaining citizens with your foolish debate.We are not interested in your English nor cognitive thinking. We are not interested lawyers but evidence that is visible.
Kaphale reasoning ability is a little bit fallacious here. What about if APM had 2,000,001 and Chakwera had 2,000,0002 votes,. And now by deliberate action we take from Chakwera 2 votes and put at APM 2,000,003 votes and now chakwera at 2,000,000. And APM now declared a winner. Will two votes be material? He needs to seee his line of thinking.
Achimwene, this is why we are saying that the Court is being moved by Kaphale!!!!!!!!!
As a constitutional court the matter at hand is not about whether the irregularities materially affected the outcome of the elections but rather whether the elections were conducted in accordance to the requirement of the constitution and the accompanying presidential and parliamentary act. MEC has no powers apart from the powers given to it by the constitution and the accompanying acts and any divergent to those powers is illegal and invalid. Why so many use of duplicates sheets, tippex, unsigned result sheets etc etc in this election? All this talk by Kaphale about “whether the irregularities materially affected the outcome of the election” is a sham brought in by Kaphale to try to mislead the court. The constitution and the accompanying acts does not give MEC the power to deliberately mismanage election as long as that mismanagement does not materially affect the outcome of the election. If the court rules in favour of MEC and DPP then Malawi is doomed forever because what will that mean is that MEC can conduct election using fake ballot papers, fake forms to enter the results on, can have compromised PO, the list goes on and on without any consequence because the precedence would have been set and validated by the courts. Court has only one option which is to nullify the results so that sanity and normalcy returns to mother Malawi. Malawi cannot afford a sham of an election like the May 21 2019 election. MEC must be stopped before they burn this country to ashes.
Additionally, a Commission of Inquiry must be instituted to find and document exactly what and why this happened…….the recommendation of the inquiry MUST be implemented accordingly and transparently……..jail anybody involved in vote manipulation to re set standards and bring fear to anybody who may think about doing this again in future ie see what happened with Vuwa and Mhone votes in NB constituency……the offender actually confessed in court of vote results manipulation…but set free to go home, REALLY? I am just imagining if it was in the US……………KWALI!!!
The Commission of Inquiry must comprise of UK, US or Germany or any other foreign country for transparency to be trully observed otherwise APUMBWAwa will bribe them to suppress and divert the course of truth and justice.
Waiting more comments from cadets please
muyisova,boma likuyenda without opposition,2024 wooooo!
the answer is clear the ruling will not be in favour of MEC even akid knows it well
ONLY IN AFRICA ( MALAWI )WHERE
2+2= 100 ——-10×10= 0 (Mixed up & confused brains ) fake professors –fake doctors —fake graduates -fake–fake results -(–TIPPEX )
Smelling a rat with crooked MEC based referrer. They did not comply all that time. Court should ask UNDP for audit report direct.
Rigged elections
The last sentence should have read: Chilima and his key witness are the only individuals who have testified in the case so far. This suggests that giving testimony is on-going while the way you ended your sentence gives the impression that the cross-examination has ended with only those two witnesses.
MEC yatitayisira nthawi.
Listen to me Malawians who are divided based on your regional and tribal affiliations.Why have you lost your sense of reason?Where is the ability you used to have to think well and normal?Have you all forgotten how painfully the nation had rejected Bingu with his new UP Party sometime back in 1999? Now have remembered how miserably UDF faired with Bingu on the ballot paper 2004 elections?Now I think you remember how the same Bingu faired in 2009 with a landslide victory across Malawi and yet we all knew he was a Lhlomwe? Why was being a Lhlomwe did not matter to Malawians?And now here we are with Peter,a Lhlomwe too,why are Malawians (70%) not happy with his leadership?And why are only people from the South in the Lhlomwe belt happy with him? The answers are with you guys.No president will be liked if he rules this country on extremely partisan front nakedly promoting one tribal in appointments of positions,selection of students to colleges and secondary schools?
Coming back to the elections case-there is no way MEC and DPP can win this case considering the fact that MEC was conspicuously seen to be partisan during results announcement to the extent that Jane Ansah was clearly seen to be the under pressure externally to announce results that were not clearly and fully verified.
There is no way guys MEC would have dealt with all irregularities that marred this years elections within such a short period of time.The court will ask for a report and signatures for each and every Madando from Political Parties attesting the process.
My friends in DPP brace for a great downfall that will ne very humiliating and unfortunately your president will have left Malawi then.Don’t say you were not warned guys.
The integrity of elections were highly compromised with Tippex irrespective of the fact that Tippex which unfortunately wasn’t supplied.
The MEC server was tampered with greatly with ghost users who manipulated results.Auditors rejected lots of results which found their way into MEC systems. Jane Ansah! Jaaaane! some of the things happened behind your backs. You should have known your party better.Jane better stay put and die in UK.
well atticulated, i like this. ulemu wanu.
This is good writing….please, keep on writing and write again!
Muthalika should prepare to get to the ground for campaign and face the giant Chakwera a man of the moment in a rerun and expect disastrous results for the dpp camp. You do not cling to power like that means there is there is Muthalika has done in govt that he is avoiding but Holy Gost says no ways the righteous is soon to appear in Malawi. We can afford to stay in the dark like this no ways.
2019 election was something else.Lord have mercy on us
Amen
When you do not comply you need to give reasons and MEC never did so. They thought court proceedings would favor them as they did with auditors by just giving them letters to approve fraudlent results. Please reject the report or ASK BDO to submit the report directly. MEC is full of liers not fit for that job. MEC must fall. The whole system is rotten even they need a new spokesperson.
It’s very logical, MEC does not create Madando. Madando submitted were 147. Because some were not reported by political parties, they were diagnosed by the auditors. That’s why they are many. Hence this is not a worrying issue. Even the MEC chair pointed out on several occasions that they anticipated more irregularities which they would fix. For those who have difficulties understanding English, an irregularity is different from fraud. The two are completely dissimilar. Hence the opposition has greater chances of losing the case.
You are in for a surprise
Kikkkkkk! Hence the Opposition has greater chances of loosing the case, underline the word CHANCES boy, What is it the word Chances doing in your sentence?
Not to my knowledge
There were never General elections at all,it was a sham.
The best solution thus is a re-run.
Meanwhile,there is no president in malawi and anything he does as the president of malawi after those useless elections will be invalid.they will be challenged in court.people should stop sticking their bums to the presidency.you lose,you must foster!!
we love that country very much than an individual of Peter mutharika.we don’t to see bloodshed like banana republics.
komaso mmasanje ali pa malawi pano opangitsa ntumbo tsinya mwava inu!!!!
tikubwerera mbuyo mmalo mopita parsogolo. cilungamo cak nkhanoyi ndi cacidziwikile koma mungoti mbw mbw mbwa.
kaphale plese dont fool us and take us for granted to make your name a sl9glan. you think we fools. komatu dam likadzaphulika kudzakhala mpupuluzi .mark my words
Why bringing too late? MEC & DPP wants to Tippex everything.
(1) MEC& DPP want to Tippex Audit Report
(2) Tippex the Presiding officers
(3) Tippexing the constituency Monitors
(4) Tippexing innocent Chiefs
(5) Tippexing foolish Cadets
(6) Tippexing foolish CSO’s led by Kamangira
(7) Tippexing STD 8 Exams
(8) Tippexing internal Auditors at Main Tally Centre
(9) Tippexing bogus party conferences
(10) Tippexing universitit’s in order to get fake degree in the name of Ben Phiri and Co.
Ooh wait a minute, it’s all about Tippexing in the blood of MEC commissioners and DPP officials.
So on 26th – 30th August reject this correction fluid called Tippex in our midst as it has been used wrongly to manipulate the results and not the name suggest.
(11) tippexing MSCE Results